Aftrer reading today's MMD I suddenly realized that I have never
introduced myself to the group...  although my posts should have given
you some idea who I am.  For the record it goes like this... the
abbreviated version.

Native Texan...  musical background...  pianos lessons starting in the
fifth grade and continuing up until I was told by my organ professor
in college, while seated at the console to ...  "forget it!"  Played
in bands, military and otherwise past college...  clarinet... and if
pushed...  percussion...  tympanni even!  Was music librarian for the
military band in college...  directed by a former member of Sousa's band.
Learned to transcribe music for all instruments...  there are never
enough parts in the set you buy from the music supply house!  Still play
occasionally with civic bands and others who just can't give it up.

First player piano in 1949...  you can read about that on my home page.
San Antonio in 1954 to go to college and work for Griffin Piano Company...
the only place restoring players in those days.  Demonstrated players at
trade shows, took my salary in rolls.  (He was getting 25 cents for used
rolls in those days!)

Taught school, elementary, junior high, and high school (physics...
chemistry) and repaired pianos on the side.  I also took pictures and
did my own processing.  Quit teaching to become a professional
photographer in 1965 and repaired player pianos on the side.  Got tired
of traveling all over the United States taking pictures and quit in 1972
to repair player pianos full time.  Had to "augment" by still taking
pictures.  Closed darkroom in 1974.  Kept those Nikkon F's which I still
use today.  Built like Sherman tanks.

By 1976 I had five people working for me doing all phases of player
piano restoration.  We did it all...  from refinishing to restringing,
heck we ran TWO shifts.  By 1989, burnout had set in and I "retired".
Closed the shop...  and immediately got bored.  Went back into the high
school classroom...  BIG MISTAKE... Left the public school classroom
and am back working on players, and "things".  That about does it...

As you can see from the posts I have spent a LOT of time in Mexico...
still go about three times a year.  First went in 1959 and discovered
what was left of "Rollos Mexico".  I am working on a post on that
subject... cannot find all the info yet.   The trips to Europe... one
in 1961 and the other in 1965 were great... found lots of stuff a lot
of it crammed in the back storerooms of museums who felt that those
wonderful automatic musical instruments were not of "general interest"
The notable exception was the Deutches Museum in Munich.  They KNEW what
they had, and the guards in the music section, in those days, could sit
down at a Mozart piano and rip off a sonnata in a heatbeat... you had
only to ask.  Spent a LOT of time in G.  Perlee's shop in Amsterdam in
1961, cranking Dutch Street organs, and watching those women punching
the books.  He was a very kind man.  Learned a lot there.

In 1979, I bought a new pickup and made what I call the "grand tour" of
the piano factories that were left in the U.S.  Conway, Arkansas...
Baldwin's Grand plant..they even let me into the room where they build
the SD-10s.  Aeolin in Memphis... all THREE plants... the most
interesting was the PA & K plant, Piano Action and Key plant.  That's
where they built the players.  They were producing 120 vertical pianos
a DAY when I was there.  More on that in another post on Aeolian.

On to North Carolina... Kohler & Campbell... Hickory Falls... nice
folks... nice plant.  The Grand Piano Company... (they made only
verticals) where I saw the first midi players being installed.  Small
operation, but I learned a lot there, also.  Then, finally the grand
daddy of them all... Wurlitzer, in Holly Springs Mississippi.  Nine
hundred employees spread over an unbelievable plant and the old cotton
compress where they made the few grands that they still built.

I will do a detail post on Wurlitzer soon, as it needs to be in the
record somewhere.  There will be no pictures of any of these places.
One firm rule in all of them..NO CAMERAS ALLOWED.  I had to "steal
with my eyes" as Eugene DeRoy so beautifully put in... see page 622
of the Bower's encyclopedia.  Of all the experiences in this wonderful
business, I learned more from those factory visits about pianos than I
could have ever learned on my own, or by reading about it somewhere.

That's it.  The rest will come as I post.

Ed